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[Obi Wan Bonogi]

Poor Dominion, forever casual.

[Donald X.]

There are no such plans; Jay prefers 3 players, itself a compromise from 4 players.

However I hope and expect (though cannot guarantee) to have tournaments with 2-player games for the online version.

What does Donald prefer?  Does the "compromise" above mean you prefer 4 players?

I just want to know so I can get all elitist and tell my friends that the best way to play is how the creator intended.

The compromise is, Jay preferred 4 players, but agreed to 3.

I personally enjoy Dominion the most with 3 players, then 4, then 2, then 5. I avoid 5 but will do it; I don't play with 6. I put 5 last because it's slower; I put 3 and 4 ahead of 2 because I like the increased interaction and social atmosphere. I put 3 ahead of 4 because it's faster and there are more Provinces per player. I personally would have supported 2-5 in the main set and would never have supported 6. This is just the way of the world though, many games support one more player than is reasonable, and they do it because of the people who actually want to play with that many players.

For a tournament I would have 2-player games. It's a tournament, it's supposed to be competitive. I would for sure sometimes have multiplayer tournaments, because people like those too, but I would default to 2-player.

This is not something I have argued with Jay about though. I am fine with his stance on the number of players, for tournaments irl anyway. He sees it as about promoting the game and people enjoying games, rather than as a competition. I shouldn't speak extensively for him but you know, that is the impression I get. And that's fine; Dominion can't have a serious tournament scene without some work that no-one is going to put into that, I'm certainly not. Jay initially thought he would never run tournaments, so we have more tournaments than we were planning.

It's different online. Online someone else will actually do that work and probably small tournaments will run frequently, so there I think it matters enough that we should have 2-player rounds be the norm, and like I said, that is what I hope for and expect, but I haven't actually discussed this with Jay.

[Kirian]

It's different online. Online someone else will actually do that work and probably small tournaments will run frequently, so there I think it matters enough that we should have 2-player rounds be the norm, and like I said, that is what I hope for and expect, but I haven't actually discussed this with Jay.

I think another difference between IRL and online is important:  time.  Consider the DS Tournament.  Seven rounds of up to seven games each, nine games in the final.  Now, online, seven games won't take more than two hours, and rarely more than 90 minutes.  Less, of course, if it's first-to-four.  IRL, seven two-player games could stretch to 3-4 hours including setup time.  Qualifier rounds start to stretch for days.  Even best-of-five is 2 hours per round, and most here on the boards would probably agree that a best-of-three match is not enough for a good test of skill.

Compare, say, the Catan qualifiers at Origins.  (I can do this because I helped run them for three years.  Yes, despite hating Catan).  Around 32 people a day play for three days, four games, around eight hours a day.  Each day is separate; the best one can do is to win all four games that day (maybe two people average per Origins), and most semifinalists had three wins and a good score based on closeness of games.  This gets to 16 semifinalists.  One semifinal and one final on Sunday.  Note that all players basically get three separate shots at the semifinals, taking their best day.

What would a similar 2P Dominion qualifier look like?  Thursday and Friday, N people play eight best-of-five matches (four per day).  Top sixteen players go into Saturday, whittling down to two players by Saturday evening.  Finals on Sunday.  Great, OK... but...

For fairness, you probably go Swiss-style.  The first two days  Then you set up... 30? 40? 60? matches, with the requisite number of sets.  You probably need at least four gophers just for setup.  A perfect tournament uses the same five sets for each round, increasing the logistics.  Seating the rounds takes 10 minutes.  Slow play, a definite possibility, stretches those eight hours a day to the breaking point.

Is this a more skill-based tournament?  Without a doubt.  Is it a logisitcal nightmare?  You bet your ass.

An IRL tournament will never be fully skill-based.  It will be skill-biased; a level 30 will beat a level 10 more often than not, but there's no time to figure out which is "more often," only time to figure which happens "this game."  And that's "good enough."  Most of the time.  It's easy to claim that the Official World Tournament ought to be more skill-based than skill-biased, but the logistics are such that it can't and won't happen.

So, in that case, you might as well have 3- or 4-player games for the tournament.  More people can compete with fewer sets and less setup time.

----

I personally think of Dominion as competitive only in 2P.  I enjoy 3P and 4P at an actual table, but then, I don't usually compete when playing at an actual table... I play with friends.  I rarely count cards.  And I agree with Donald that 5P and 6P Dominion are... less than ideal.  Much less than ideal, IMO.

[theory]

Also, we don't need that copies of the game for online play.  2011 DSC was 256 players with all expansions.  IRL that'd require 128 copies of the game and each expansion.

[DStu]

Also, we don't need that copies of the game for online play.  2011 DSC was 256 players with all expansions.  IRL that'd require 128 copies of the game and each expansion.

You don't need 128 of each expansion I would guess. The probability that only 1 kingdom gets drawn 128times in the 128 games of round 1 is close enough to zero that you can ignore it.

[theory]

Yeah, that's true.  And if you impose restraints on Kingdoms you can limit that even more.  Still, way too many games.

[DStu]

Seems like you want about 25 copies of each card...

[Insomniac]

Yeah, that's true.  And if you impose restraints on Kingdoms you can limit that even more.  Still, way too many games.

But a lot of tournaments IRL stipulate that each person must play each game with the kingdom cards once. So there is often one randomized set that everyone plays with. At least a fair amount of the local ones I've been to and some of the ones ive seen rules posted for

[Kirian]

So in thinking about this... and I know this is way off the original topic, but, well, yeah... a different idea for a 2P in-person tournament.  For an Origins-style con, 4 days, ~100 participants:

Days 1 and 2:  Qualifiers.  Instead of best-of-N matches, each player plays 16 total games against 16 different opponents on one day.  Swiss pairing, with tiebreaking by some reasonable system.  Each day is a separate qualifier, with participants welcome to try both days.  After qualifiers, each player's best result from the two days is used.  Top 32 players by best result advance.

Day 3 Morning:  Rounds of 32, 16, and 8.  Single elimination, best-of-three.

Day 3 Afternoon:  Quarterfinals.  Best-of-five.

Day 4:  Finals.  Best-of-seven.

For a smaller con (2 days, ~30-40 participants), Use only one day of qualifiers, and take the top 16.  Rounds of 16, 8, and 4 are best-of-three; finals best-of-five.

----

Logistics:

Tables are pre-set, one table for each pairing with a different board at each table, but with little or no overlap between cards.  One full set of expansions needed per ~24 players, and of course one set of "base cards" per 2 players.  Players are assigned a table each round; ideally no player sits at the same table twice.